Rally

My girls (25, 19, 15, 8) and I went to Mexico for Christmas. DH died in March 2015,so I just wanted to have some happy memories for my girls for 2015. It was the absolute best decision for all of us. We went somewhere warm and did things at Christmastime that we had never done before. We had a great time exploring, relaxing, and just being together and not worrying about putting on appearances for anyone. I highly recommend it. We did a girls trip in July, so 4 months out, with my mom, sister and nieces...that was just hard. We all felt like we needed to be"on" all the time and it ended up being stressful. We are going to do another girls trip next summer and we'll see if it's any better. For us, being able to just "be" no matter what that is at the time is very important and, sometimes, other people just don't understand that. Good luck!

My husband's aunt and uncle gifted me a double plot after his very unexpected death this spring. We both have strong ties to the cemetery and I was very thankful for their generous gift. I opted to have a double headstone placed...I didn't anticipate the impact seeing my name on a headstone would have on my girls. I designed, ordered, and paid for the stone within 2 weeks of his death, honestly, I don't know if that was the wisest decision. I would probably still order a double stone that my information could be added to later if needed.

This will be our first Christmas without DH too, he died March 22. I just booked a trip to Mexico last night for me and my girls. I can't bear the thought of trying to deal with the holidays at home without him.